Yoshi-P Talks Plans For FFXIV:ARR Beta Phase 2

Naoki Yoshida discusses plans for the FFXIV:ARR beta phase 2 in his fourty-fourth “Letter from the Producer.”

The FFXIV:ARR beta is underway and the game’s producer, Yoshi-P has been been pretty busy with it. But, luckily for A Realm Reborn fans, he’s taken some time out to compose his forty-fourth Letter from the Producer.

According to the letter, the current phase of beta testing already hosts 100,000 players — which has been causing some serious congestion any time the servers are brought online. Of course, while this may be of some annoyance to people who just want to get into the game and play it, it also shows that there are quite a few people chomping at the bit to try out the game.

There is another upside to having players putting strain on the servers this early. Yoshida’s letter states that this has allowed the team to see issues that they hadn’t noticed during the alpha phase and fix them quickly.

It should also be noted that this is still a limited group. More people will be allowed in during later phases of the beta.

Gamepad functionality

One of the big promises for XIV has been that it will allow players to use a gamepad to play — which kind of makes sense when you know the game will also be playable on consoles. And, as it turns out, gamepad functionality is slated to be tested during FFXIV:ARR beta phase 2.

In fact, the main focus of the second phase of beta testing is the control pad. So Yoshida warns players not to expect a ton of new content for it.

Guildhests

One bit of content that is being worked on at the moment is guildhests, which are based on behests from XIV 1.0. Guildhests give players an easy way to party with their friends giving them a way to take part in group play at early levels. Basically, this is pre-dungeon content.

Yoshida says that these will be available for players starting in phase 3 of beta testing.

Pretty pictures and more.

Yoshi-P was also kind enough to drop a few screenshots of the guildhests in action into his letter for players to look at. And of course, if you want to read the full letter you can check it out here.